


Stay in the Darkness with Me

by Miss_M



Category: Ready or Not (2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Porn, Complicated Relationships, Cunnilingus, F/M, Infidelity, Oral Sex, Post-Canon, Sexual Content, bad marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:41:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26908297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_M/pseuds/Miss_M
Summary: Ten years after her wedding, Grace still didn’t feel like part of the family.
Relationships: Daniel Le Domas/Grace Le Domas, background Alex Le Domas/Grace Le Domas
Comments: 10
Kudos: 107
Collections: Trick or Treat Exchange 2020





	Stay in the Darkness with Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Snickfic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snickfic/gifts).



> This is an extra treat. I own nothing.

On her wedding night, Grace played Texas hold ‘em and kicked her new family’s butts. 

She’d grinned when she drew the card from the magical box, and wondered whether they’d even had Texas hold ‘em back before the Civil War. But that didn’t really matter – what mattered was that Grace had paid for her college textbooks and meal plan by playing every and any variety of poker at informal gambling dens around campus. The rich might have played by their own rules, but she had _skills_.

After that night of cardsharp triumph and the intense sex Alex and she had after the game ( _“I’m so glad you drew that card,” Alex gasped in her ear when he came, and she wondered what he meant, and laughed, still flush with victory_ ), things went downhill pretty fast.

Grace failed at making Alex happy – everyone had warned her that after the first year of marriage, things would change, but Grace hadn’t realized this meant that, once he’d married her, Alex would lose interest in their life together and pour all of himself into his work. 

She failed at keeping her promise to her mother-in-law to bring Alex back to his family, because Alex flat-out refused to visit them and told Grace it would be weird for her to visit them without him. 

She failed at conceiving a child, and after about two years they stopped trying. Soon after that, they stopped having sex except when they argued, but Alex didn’t like to argue. He preferred to tell Grace she was getting hysterical and walk out of the room whenever she tried to pick a fight with him. 

“Why don’t we just get a divorce?” she asked him once, her anger yielding to exhaustion.

“We don’t really go in for divorce in my family,” Alex replied, his eyes on his laptop screen. He refused to hang out with his family, but he didn’t mind using them to refuse Grace something she wanted.

“I didn’t realize you’re Catholics,” Grace said acidly. 

Alex looked up at her then and barked a laugh which chilled Grace to her core. _I don’t know him at all._ They were married six years at that point.

Soon after that nonstarter of an argument, Fitch embezzled a whole bunch of money from his in-laws and escaped abroad with his personal assistant, only to die in a freak accident involving an exploding speedboat less than a fortnight later. Within a year, Emilie married a woman she met in rehab. Alex RSVP’d without even consulting Grace. 

“Oh, now you want to visit your family?” Grace goaded him.

Alex checked that his tie hung straight in the looking glass and kept his back to her. “It’s tradition. Everyone gets married at the house, and everyone attends.”

Grace got hammered on champagne long before sundown, so no one should have blamed her when Emilie’s bride drew a card that said _Sorry!_ and Grace burst into a loud, braying, snorting laugh, right there, in the inner sanctum of the Le Domas games room. Everyone glared at her – for a family that had made its fortune in games, they could be humorless as fuck – and only Daniel caught Grace’s eye and toasted her with his scotch, his expression as tired and wry as she felt. 

The next time Alex and she visited was just before their tenth wedding anniversary, when George married his college sweetheart.

George was taller than everyone else by then and hated being called _Georgie_ , and his bride was a sweet, shy little thing whom Grace avoided because she saw herself, ten years younger and full of hope, and couldn’t decide which would be worse: trying to warn her, as Daniel had done for her, Grace, and being ignored, or letting the young bride walk into the jaws of the Le Domas family heedless and eager for acceptance at all cost. 

After the reception and the dinner, with only the family and the servants left in that monstrosity of a house, Grace wandered the oak-paneled hallways, a little tipsy but nowhere near as numb as she would have liked to be, until she came to the double doors emblazoned with the family name and decided to violate the sacred space within by going inside before midnight, when everyone would gather round for the obligatory game.

As she pushed open the doors and stumbled down the shallow steps into the games room, among the candelabra and the hunting trophies, Grace knew that her rebellion was as pathetic as it was puny. So she’d gone into the holy of holies before everyone else got there, before midnight, big whoop! She was family – she was allowed. She should have burned the whole place to the ground, that really would have showed them.

She sprawled in a huge wingback armchair upholstered in smooth black leather, studded with buttons the size of silver dollars. Her black lace mini dress rode up her thighs. _“The invitation said semi-formal,” Alex had pointed out while they got dressed that morning. “Lace is appropriate for a wedding,” Grace had parried, loathing how passive aggressive living with him made her._ She spread her legs in as unladylike a way as she could manage, fuming and having no target to hand at which to launch her anger, then threw one leg over the armrest for good measure, the hem of her dress riding up even higher.

Daniel walked in, gave her a long look – in her armchair, with her pantyhose-sheathed crotch airing in the draft crisscrossing the large room – then walked to the sideboard and retrieved an unopened bottle of scotch and a clean glass.

“The bar in the music room run dry?” Grace bit off. 

Daniel cracked the seal, twisted off the cap, and poured out a generous measure, all without looking at her, riling her more even as she told herself that Daniel, of all the Le Domases, wasn’t her enemy, that it was no wonder they kept booze all over the house because it really was a cheerless goddamn place to live in, that she was the one acting provocatively and he was being a gentleman about it despite how he’d looked at her on first walking in.

Daniel crossed to Grace’s armchair and held the scotch glass out to her. “Keep acting bitchy and I’ll drink this all myself. You’ll have to play the game sober. Well,” he cocked his head, studying her. “Mostly sober.”

Grace looked at him. She looked at the glass, the amber liquid inside it, Daniel’s fingers cupping it. 

Her mouth twisting, Grace took the glass. “Fuck you,” she muttered and took a gulp. She didn’t close her legs. 

Daniel poured a second glass, sat on the edge of the matching armchair facing Grace’s. Her lap was in his direct line of sight, yet he watched the floor or Grace’s face while they drank in silence. The muffled ticking of the grandfather clock in the hall outside made Grace feel itchy. Still she didn’t close her legs. She would rather make a fool of herself than concede defeat, even for her own benefit, even to Daniel. 

“Why did Georgie have to get married here anyway?” she asked to break the silence but also because it had bothered her ever since the invitation had arrived in the mail and she hadn’t had it in her to deal with another one of Alex’s dismissive non-answers. “He’s a Bradley, not a Le Domas. Why can’t he do whatever he wants, or follow his dad’s family traditions?”

Even as she spoke those words, Grace knew that the phrase _wedding tradition_ and the late, little-lamented Fitch Bradley didn’t belong in the same sentence. So she laughed and drank more of her scotch when Daniel replied:

“I think strippers and Tijuana donkey shows are supposed to precede the wedding, not accompany it. Besides,” Daniel shrugged, rolling his glass between his palms, “Georgie’s mother’s a Le Domas. He belongs.”

 _And I don’t_ , Grace thought. She never had. Not really. All her accumulated resentment over how her marriage had turned out didn’t make that simple truth hurt any less. 

“Grace.”

She blinked and looked up. She really didn’t want to cry and smudge her mascara, with less than half an hour left till the stupid game at the stroke of midnight. 

Daniel was watching her – her face, not her crotch. He really had more strength of character than she’d given him credit for. “You know you’re not missing out on anything,” he said. “We’re all assholes here, you’re better off with just Alex. You just have to get through the game, and then…”

“And then I get to go back and _be with Alex_. God! You have no idea…” Grace broke off, swung her leg down off the armrest so she could cross her legs and hug herself, gripping her empty glass in her hand. “I don’t understand why it’s so goddamn important that we come here for just weddings and these stupid card games and board games. We didn’t even attend Fitch’s funeral, for fuck’s sake!”

For a long moment, Daniel said nothing, and when he did, Grace couldn’t begin to figure out his tone or his expression.

“You don’t know… Alex never…” Daniel downed the rest of his drink and said, in a rush, to the floor between them rather than to Grace: “You still believe we play a game when someone gets married because we made our money in games.”

“It’s _tradition_ ,” Grace said, imitating Alex’s distracted yet superior tone, looked into her empty glass, grimaced, and stood up. Tugging her short dress down, she headed for the sideboard.

Daniel intercepted her before she could grab the bottle of scotch. He grabbed her wrist instead. “Grace.”

“Let go. You don’t have a monopoly on getting drunk in this house.” She cackled. To her own ears, she sounded both sad and deranged. “Monopoly, that’s funny. More motherfucking games.” 

One hand on her wrist, the other on her waist, like they were about to demonstrate the waltz, Daniel made her turn so she faced him. “I wish I could make this better for you.”

He must have known what that sounded like. Grace took a deep breath and looked him in the eye. Face to face, toe to toe, and her pulse hammering in the circle of his fingers. 

“You want to make me feel better, Daniel?” she asked, not even bothering to sound flirtatious or seductive. They were sad fucking people, and honesty wasn’t uplifting. 

His face, watching her. He was starting to go grey at the temples, Grace noticed, individual white hairs in his beard. He must have _known_. “Yes,” Daniel said.

Grace breathed, in and out like surfacing from deep water, and put her empty glass blindly down on the sideboard, not caring if it broke. “Come on, then,” she said and used Daniel’s grip on her wrist to tug him back to her armchair. 

She sprawled in it again, kicking off her pumps, while Daniel stood between her legs and looked down at her. Grace wriggled, seeking purchase on the smooth leather, wondering how she’d managed to make this impromptu affair with her brother-in-law happen on a piece of furniture really not meant for anything but regal posing. 

She grabbed the armrests with both hands and lifted her crotch off the seat, and Daniel got the memo at last. His hands shook when he reached under the hem of Grace’s dress and pulled her pantyhose and underwear down. 

Grace let herself fall back into the armchair and reached for him while he held her ankle and peeled the pantyhose off her foot, unclear even in her own mind whether she wanted to hug Daniel or just mash his face between her legs. His hair was soft under her fingers, his neck was flushed, his breathing heavy. Who knew that a fuck-you to her in-laws and a sincere fuck with someone who’d wanted her for ten years could be one and the same, Grace thought as she caressed Daniel’s hair and he pressed an open-mouthed kiss to her inner thigh, wasting no time, his breath stirring her pubic hair.

Daniel’s second kiss was for her labia. Grace let her head fall back, straining her back in the impractical armchair, and felt herself get wetter as Daniel nuzzled then licked her, the tip of his tongue teasing her open, her wetness smearing on the leather upholstery. The scotch on his lips and tongue made her tingle, his beard tickled her; he blew on her, cool air on her wet flesh, so she twitched all over, grateful now that she hadn’t had more to drink. She did not want to be numb for this. 

Daniel settled on his knees in front of her and put his arms around her, pushing the dress up around Grace’s waist, filling his hands with her thighs, her buttocks, squeezing as he started to eat her out. The breezes coming from unknown nooks and crannies, filling the games room with the rustle of curtains like distant voices, covered Grace’s bare legs in gooseflesh. Her ass was stuck to the leather chair, and she wouldn’t have changed position or location for the world. She gripped Daniel’s head to her, massaged his scalp with her fingertips, indulged the desire to pull his hair just a little too sharply. 

He made messy, wet noises as he sucked her clit and flicked his tongue inside her, sighing through his nose and lapping at her. If this was how he ate her out in a hurry and half-drunk, how would he have made her feel if they had time and privacy? Grace bit her lip and admonished herself: she wouldn’t get to have this a second time. She hiked both legs over the armrests, her thighs wide open, the games-room door directly in front of her, and allowed herself to sigh out loud when Daniel stopped tongue-fucking her, resumed licking her clit, and pressed two fingers into her. Grace rocked her hips, and Daniel picked up her rhythm as he fingered her and circled her clit with his tongue, making _unh, unh_ noises in his throat like he’d been dying to taste her.

Daniel kissed her labia, his tongue flicking where his fingers were pushing hard in and out of her, before he sucked her clit again, his head bobbing with the effort to please her. Grace felt him swallow. Her stomach tightened, her whole body seized up in anticipation. 

The grandfather clock struck the quarter-hour. 

Grace let go of Daniel’s hair with one hand so she could bite the sleeve of her dress when she started to come. She rode Daniel’s face, moaning around a mouthful of black lace, her other hand cupping the back of Daniel’s head in a death grip, and he kept sucking her, putting his neck into it, his fingers pumping, pumping till Grace couldn’t take anymore, and pushed him away, and collapsed in the armchair, her limbs sticking out every which way. The leather seat beneath her was smeared with her sex, cooling in the cross breezes. 

Daniel remained kneeling in front of Grace, his head down, catching his breath and propping himself up with his hands on his knees. He wiped his mouth and beard with his hand, then licked his palm, and Grace clenched on empty at that and at the sight of Daniel’s obvious hard-on.

“Come here, quick,” Grace said, heaving herself upright in the armchair, reaching for Daniel. 

He let her pull him up to his feet, but when she started to undo his pants, his hands covered hers and stilled them, again stronger than she expected. 

“We have time, come on.” 

Frantic, Grace pressed her lips to Daniel’s, feeling his beard still slick with her, his lips immobile under hers. Let all the Le Domases troop in and find Daniel railing her under the watchful gaze of Victor Le Domas in his portrait and the glass eyes of the stuffed and mounted antelopes. But she couldn’t get Daniel to unlock his grip on her hands or to return her kiss.

“Grace, listen to me. There’s something important you need to know about tonight. About these games we play when someone new joins the family.”

 _I don’t care, I want you._ Grace swallowed down the words, for she was certain they would have come out in a bratty whine worthy of a true Le Domas. She tore her gaze away from Daniel’s hard-on – if he could ignore it, goddamn it so could she! – and looked up into Daniel’s open, terrible, terrified face. 

He had done everything she wanted. He wanted her to listen to him. So she did, while out in the hall the grandfather clock counted down the scant minutes till midnight.


End file.
